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US and China talk climate before crucial 2015 summit

By Catherine Brahic

Barack Obama will meet Xi Jinping this week

(Image: Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images)

A warming talk? US president Barack Obama is in China this week to meet his counterpart, Xi Jinping, in Beijing – and climate change is high on the agenda. Jointly, their countries are responsible for 36 per cent of global carbon emissions, and are seen as the main drivers of climate change and obstacles to tackling it.

“This is an important meeting for them to signal how they will work together and how they can drive the ambition of each other and others,” says Jennifer Morgan of the World Resources Institute in Washington DC.

The climate conversation is scheduled for Wednesday, at the close of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference, just weeks before the next round of UN climate talks kicks off in Peru’s capital, Lima. The talks in Lima are the final preparation for the 2015 climate summit in Paris, at which nations are expected to agree on a new legally binding treaty to regulate carbon emissions. The US and China still haven’t made any pledges on cutting carbon emissions under the UN process, but their cooperation with each other is seen as inspiring other nations.

“We’ve seen US-China cooperation changing substantially over the last five years,” says Joanna Lewis of Georgetown University in Washington DC. For example, the nations are carrying out joint research and development into clean energy. “The level of dialogue we’re seeing is very different from what we had in the lead-up to [the climate summit in] Copenhagen,” Lewis says.